“Ay, sir, ... there was cider....”
“Well, what else did they give you? Speak up, man! Why, we shall stand here all day!... What else was there?”
“Ah ... well, sir, there was a kind of quaking jelly stuff, ... sort of sloppy mess it was, ... I don’t rightly know....”
“Doesn’t matter to me whether it was sloppy or not; I shall have to pay for it just the same. Well, and after the jelly what? Shchi, no doubt. Did you eat shchi?”
“Oh, ay, I ate it up, sartain sure....”
“Well, then?”
“Only, you see, sir, ’tis almost as if I hadn’t eaten it, like ...”
The deacon put on a stern expression and continued gravely—
“Well, and what did you have with the shchi? I suppose there was some kind of soup-meat with it, wasn’t there?”
“Ay, ay, there were a wee bit, for sure ... but ’twas terrible fat—terrible fat, it was....”